Bigger Than Reality
by feministfairytales
Summary: AU from the end of season two. After almost ten years in an alternate dimension, Rose Tyler's life has changed a lot--new name, new home, new career. It all tumbles down when a familiar face comes looking for her, with no idea who she is.
1. Chapter 1

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 1

It was a chilly winter morning on an otherwise nondescript Friday when Gwen Smith came suddenly and completely awake with a gasping breath. Looking over and seeing her clock read 4:57 am she switched off the alarm and stretched luxuriously in her single bed, breathing deeply to clear her mind of the last remnants of the bad dream that had shocked her awake. Being accustomed to unpleasant dreams and not to wasting time, she threw back her comforter and duvet, hopped out of bed and shucked off her shorts and tank top, trading them for running gear.

By 5:05 am Gwen was outside her apartment building, starting along her newest favorite morning run route. She had a graceful stride and a long, lean, lanky runner's build, due largely to the fact that she had not missed a morning run, regardless of the weather or how she felt, in over eight years. If she had friends in this new town they might have whispered that she was addicted to exercise, or that she simply did not know how to relax and take a day off; but the truth of the matter was that Gwen's morning run was the only time when she _did_ allow herself to relax. It was her time to remember who she was and be herself.

She liked to run without any distractions—no partner, no iPod, no headphones, no audio books or radio—just the sound of the wind in her hair and the lonely solitude of the world before dawn. This half hour or so of running connected her to her old life, and if she really thought about it (which she almost always did), she could nearly feel the ghost of a hand in hers, nearly hear the whisper of the voice she longed for in the wind whipping around her head.

For this half hour she could remember how it felt, once upon a time, to be Rose Tyler. Before that awful day of battle when Rose Tyler was separated forever from her home dimension and her home on the TARDIS, and thrown into a linear time line in a world that didn't need her.

Back in that life Rose Tyler had run a lot—run away from monsters, away from danger, away from her past, and always, always toward her Doctor. There really had been an inordinate amount of running involved in saving the universe. Now, Gwen Smith ran simply to remember the running. There were no monsters (other than the ones that haunted her dreams), little danger, and no Doctor. That was the part that hurt the most—no Doctor. She hadn't believed it was possible to feel this, this impossibly deep mix of love and loss and pain, until it became her life; until that horrible, horrible day on a deserted beach when Rose Tyler's life ended and Gwen Smith's began.

And, if Gwen was honest with herself (which she wasn't always), she did also run to stay in shape, just in case. Actually, that deserves capitals. She ran to stay in shape, Just In Case.

Hoping was perhaps the one thing that Gwen did more fiercely and adamantly than running. Because hoping softened some the sharp edges of that yearning pain, helped assuage some of the gut-wrenching, unfulfilled longing that accompanied her every where she went. Because the alternative—not hoping—was an impossible, completely intolerable option. Because hope made her resilient, gave her direction, and gave her a purpose.

Between hoping and striving for the impossible and the morning ritual of being absorbed in memories, Gwen wasn't sure if she was running toward or away from her demons, and she tried not to think about it. Most days she was just happy if her post-run shower hid the evidence of her tears. The Doctor, her first Doctor, had once told her to live a fantastic life when he thought she was going to be separated from him. So far this was the closest approximation she could manage.

By 7:30 am Gwen was on campus and making her morning stop in her office before spending some time in either the lab or the library. Fridays this semester were a busy affair. After only a couple of precious hours in either the archeology lab or the library, she had three different freshman 101 classes to teach; and today a paper was due, so she would also have 150 or so term papers to grade. Gwen sighed—some day she might even finish her dissertation.


	2. Chapter 2

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 2

Before she could get her key from her bag, Gwen heard her office mate call through the door, "It's open!" The eager, chipper voice put a smile on her face as she turned the knob and nodded her head in greeting to the young man sitting at the desk in the far corner. He in turn grinned at her and got up, as was his morning custom, to make her a cup of tea with the hot water he'd put to boil in their electric kettle. As he rounded the corner of his desk his unbuttoned tweed jacket caught on a pile of books stacked precariously on the edge, making them teeter dangerously. In his effort to grab the books before they fell he jammed his foot into the leg of the desk, lost his balance, and fell into a graceless heap, the books tumbling down on top of him.

Gwen was too used to seeing this sort of clumsiness from her office mate to feel more than a passing concern for his safety. Somehow he always bounced up right as rain, no matter how awful the tumble might look. "Years of practice, I suppose," she thought to herself with a grin as she strode over to disentangle him and help him to his feet, losing the battle to hold back her laughter when she met his eye and his own dry chuckle filled the air. She still felt a little bit guilty when she laughed at him, but it was impossible not to laugh at a man who pulled that sort of stunt on such a regular basis. Once he was righted she, still chuckling in quiet mirth, passed him to fix her own cup of tea.

Gwen was at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas as a temporary, visiting faculty member in the anthropology department. Still working to finish her doctorate at the University of Oxford, and as only a temporary member of staff, she hadn't been surprised to find her office at the top of the building and down a dark, narrow hallway, dusty with disuse. Gwen had been surprised when she entered it and found it occupied by a skinny, awkward, scared-looking young graduate student. Renovations were being done to the science buildings, and so she found she was expected to share her space with one of the department's graduate teaching assistants, John Smith.

At first his name had startled her as much as his presence, but she was quickly able to accept that his was an exceedingly common and unremarkable name, and a simple coincidence that this man, with this name, had ended up as her office mate. Acknowledgement of this fact allowed her to channel all of her energy into detesting his existence and the necessity of their working together, as he was the assigned teaching assistant to all of her freshman classes.

Gwen had made a habit of not socializing and not making friends in her academic career. It wasn't like she could really talk about her past with anyone, and it was so much easier to just remain an enigmatic loner than to risk divulging things too fantastical to be believed. Plus, she was leaving this universe as soon as she figured out how, and no friends meant no messy goodbyes. So Gwen was determined to pointedly ignore the gawky graduate student invading her space as much as humanly possible.

As time went on she found that harder and harder to do. John Smith, it turned out, was more than just an ungainly, uncoordinated, awkward young man. He had a brilliant mind, a passion for his field of study, and seemed determined to like Gwen and make her like him no matter how obvious the disdain with which he was treated. It didn't take Gwen long to get used to his presence and accept sharing her office and her classroom as just another necessary evil of her work.

Now, after a semester of working with the man, she had to admit that she liked John Smith despite herself, and was glad that she saw him every day. It was a nice change to interact with a likeable, kind person who respected her space and didn't ask too many questions. It also helped that he treated her with a comical combination of hero-worship and affection that she couldn't help but find flattering.

As she passed back by him on her way to her desk, cup of steaming, aromatic tea in hand, she pulled a face at the cheap, weak instant coffee he insisted on drinking morning after morning, no matter how often she offered him free range over her collection of quality British teas. John, ensconced back behind his own desk with his feet propped on the books now safely stacked on the floor by the wall, took a long pull of the lukewarm coffee, smacked his lips and winked roguishly at her.

Gwen giggled helplessly and shook her head. Yes, she couldn't help but admit to herself, sharing this space with John Smith was an enjoyable thing. It was almost like having a real friend again.


	3. Chapter 3

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 3

"Class at ten today, yeah John?" Gwen asked, with a slightly impish smile, as John shoved a pile of papers and a couple of books into his worn brown leather messenger bag, clearly preparing to head to the library.

His eyes sparkled with mock defensiveness as he looked up from his bulging bag, "Hey! I was only late that one day! One day, and it wasn't even my fault!" He paused for a second, chagrinned, then mumbled to his papers, "Okay, not _completely_ my fault."

Gwen's smile broadened as she continued to tease her graduate assistant, "An' you still haven't explained to me exactly how you ended up on the wrong side of campus covered in red paint an' pine needles."

John scratched the back of his neck nervously, "Yeah, about that… well… you see…" his eyes darted to his watchless wrist, "will you look at that, time to go!" He grabbed his bag and made a beeline to the door.

Gwen laughed and called out as his retreating form, "You're gonna tell me eventually, right?"

His head appeared back around the door frame, a wide, Cheshire-cat grin on his face. "Nope!" he exclaimed gleefully, comically popping the 'p.'

Gwen's laugh died on her lips as the door closed behind John, a heavy weight settling in her chest and her mind retreating to the last time she had heard the sound of a popped 'p.' It had been more than eight years. Nearly a decade.

It had also been a long time since she had felt this particular pain—the intense, single painful throb of simultaneous passionate joy and crushed hope that tore through her body at that sound. Even coming from the wrong face on the wrong man with the wrong accent on the wrong continent in the wrong universe, that sound went straight to her heart. Gwen closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to pull herself back to the rational, real world.

For months after landing on this planet that pang of hope and loss plagued her. A random hum at just the right pitch and she would dash out of the room, positive that the TARDIS had brought her Doctor back to her. She constantly darted off at angles while walking down the crowded London streets, catching a glimpse of a pin-stripe suit, or a pair of red trainers, or the blue glow of a sonic screwdriver and pursuing it doggedly. It had been horrible, and would have driven her mad if it hadn't instead driven her deeper into her work.

It was easy to get sucked into work at Torchwood. Pete had gotten her the job, even as they were leaving Norway, and it was hard to argue that Rose wasn't imminently qualified to work with alien encounters. She'd had to pick a new identity, of course. The notoriously childless Tylers couldn't suddenly produce a twenty-something biological heiress to their fortune. Money, and some tight-lipped, high-up connections in the heart of government secrets had purchased her a new identity as the orphaned daughter of a close childhood friend of Pete, whom he took in after her parents' tragic death two years previous. Her absence from the Tyler mansion (and England) was accounted for as finishing her education at the boarding school her parents had chosen for her, followed by a year of travelling, wandering through foreign climes and cultures on a lonely search for self.

She didn't get to choose her history, but she was able to choose her new name. Smith had been a simple choice—something to tie her to her old life, remind her every day of where, and who, she was trying to get back to. It had taken her longer to pick a first name. It would have made sense to go with something simple, like her middle name, but truthfully, Rose had never really liked the name Marion. She instead decided to go with Gwen, a modernization of Gwynth, the young, poor, orphaned servant girl who had died to save the world in one of her first adventures with her first Doctor. It had seemed appropriate to honor her.

Gwen put her head down on her desk and bit back a sudden urge to cry out. Okay, so thinking about past adventures was still not a good idea when she was feeling a little raw and shaken. She raised her head and inspected her fingernails, letting out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Slowly her attention drifted from her fingers to the single, dusty window in her and John's office, which overlooked a small, shadowed, rarely used courtyard.

Torchwood. It had been shockingly easy to fall into a routine at Torchwood. Her real history was, to her knowledge, known to no one at Torchwood but Mickey and Pete; so it had been here that she had really become Gwen Smith. It started with her appearance. First, she dyed her hair back to her natural color and cut it short, in a cute pixie-ish sort of style. It was just easier to deal with at that length and with no need to dye it. Then she'd stopped wearing mascara and other makeup—after her morning run she was often cutting it close to get into the office on time, so it was easy to let that fall to the wayside. Her clothing choices had also necessarily run to more somber, easily washable colors made out of comfortable, durable fabrics. Doing a lot of field work helped that evolution along until it became habit.

And with her clothes and hair and general appearance, her personality also began to change slightly. Rose Tyler had been innocent and naïve and carefree and reckless and so hopelessly, impossibly young. Living through pain and unfulfilled longing and what everyday felt like another lifetime of grief had matured and hardened her. The sweet, eager, loving kernel of Rose Tyler still existed in Gwen Smith, but it was hidden under an assertive, focused, logical, and cautious veneer. The alternate version of Rose Tyler existing in this alternate reality, the woman who had named herself Gwen Smith—she had learned not to believe in fairy tales or happily ever afters.

Torchwood played a large role in developing this rational cynicism. Every time she rushed out of her office (which was very often indeed, finding herself a serious workaholic) to investigate the scene of an alien encounter and the Doctor was not there (which he, obviously, never was) her skepticism took a firmer root, until it became part of her.

She had been in serious danger of becoming an angry, bitter woman-scorned stereotype, too immersed in her work and its resultant fervent efforts to get back to the Doctor to be able to see it objectively. Thankfully, about eight or nine months into her tenure at Torchwood, she had a sudden and sharp epiphany.

It was a normal Torchwood operation. There was a suspicious sighting, a crash of an unidentified object, most likely alien, in the wilds of a northern wood. Her team arrived just as the cool air of dusk settled through the trees; refreshing after a close and humid afternoon spent in a packed, stuffy SUV to get there. They spread out and approached the object carefully, each of them with a gun drawn at the ready. There was a small, yellow and orange spidery creature sitting next to it, apparently dazed from the crash and having only just found the strength to exit its ruined craft. It was nothing Gwen had ever encountered before, but it appeared to be harmless and possibly injured. Its single eye met hers instinctively, somehow recognizing a sympathetic being, one who knew a lost traveler when she saw one.

She had smiled warmly at the creature and lowered her weapon, approaching it slowly, looking for any obvious hurts. The creature, in turn, made a motion to approach her. Whatever it was its natural movement was extremely quick, and before Gwen could utter a word of protest to her colleagues, every gun but Gwen's had fired straight and true. And Torchwood marksmen never missed.

As Gwen watched the poor, defenseless, lost creature draw its final breath (figuratively speaking… it didn't actually seem to be an aerobic being) she realized that the cool familiarity of this scene was dangerous.

Gwen Smith was a person in flux, her personality still being formed, and she realized that this was an important moment when she got to choose what sort of person she would become. She didn't want to be a person who shot first and asked questions later. She didn't want to be able to look at this scene of heartless and unnecessary bloodshed with the cool detachment of her colleagues who assured her she'd 'get used to it.' Thinking back to her travels with the Doctor, to the many times they had landed in an uncertain time or place and had to rely on the native population to direct them. So very, very rarely were they greeted with hostility or gunfire.

She didn't want to be part of one of those populations. She wanted to be someone the Doctor could still travel with, someone he could recognize as Rose Tyler and still respect and love. That meant no guns. None of this Torchwood nonsense of taking alien technology that fell through the rift and studying it 'defensively'—a euphemism for engineering weapons capable only of killing, preferably many, many beings at a time.

The suddenness of this realization, the feeling of being used for sinister purposes overwhelmed Gwen and she turned an angry visage at her team, ready to launch into a diatribe against their actions, but stopped herself abruptly, recognizing it as pointless. No, if she wanted to remain someone her Doctor could travel with she needed a big change, and yelling wouldn't make it happen. She instead she turned on her heels and marched away from the scene, away from the team, away from what her life was slowly becoming. That was her last day at Torchwood.

The next day, with the help of some forged school and test records, Gwen applied to the University of Oxford. The Doctor loved knowledge, respected knowledge, so she would pursue knowledge (and use it to get back to him).

Her days at Oxford were much quieter and helped calm and center her. She chose to study anthropology and archeology, acknowledging that her unique background and work experience would allow her to specialize in unidentifiable artifacts—basically, alien junk that falls from space or through the rift. It would be like working for Torchwood, only without any insidious undercurrent. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, not for the sake of killing.

She threw herself into her studies with a savage dedication that both awed and frightened her professors and fellow students. Her first year was full of veiled hints and warnings from various professors about genius burnt out and ruined by excessive study, about the need to take care of both body and mind, about the fragile state of human mental health. Those memories still made her smile—the fire that drove her was not a consuming sort, but rather a driving force that only helped her hone and sharpen her skills. No, the danger of her passionate study was allayed by secret plans and desires that no one around her could ever hope to understand. Every new artifact became another potential chance to breach the rift and finally get back to the Doctor, back to being Rose Tyler, back where she belonged. She attacked the challenges of these artifacts with a ferocity never witnessed by her faculty and advanced quickly.

After her first year of study, as her shocked professors began to recognize that somehow her constant, methodical mania was not injuring her, the hints and suggestions died away. She practically rocketed to the top of her area, and became a respected voice in the anthropological field over the following years. This year, while still working on her doctoral dissertation for Oxford, she accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

It seemed a strange choice to her peers. Oxford was completely willing to take her on as a professor. All of the American Ivy League schools, along with a host of prestigious schools around the world, were clamoring for her. And yet, she chose a little-known public school's offer. Her colleagues collectively shrugged their shoulders and chalked the decision up to one of her seemingly endless quirks. In reality Gwen took the position because it put her close to an American rift, hidden in the desert surrounding Las Vegas—hidden in the famously mysterious Area 51, to which Mickey (and Torchwood) helped her gain privileged access. On weekdays she taught and worked at the library, on weekends she spent long hours studying alien technology from this rift.

Gwen smiled absently, thinking of how all of this had led her to this spot, to this office, in this seemingly random place, working with the tall, thin, goofy American man attached to the hand that was waving in front of her eyes. She broke abruptly out of her day dream, her eyes coming into focus to see John's concerned face hovering a foot or so from hers.

"Hello? Hello, Earth to Gwen… you alright?" he asked in a gentle voice, much softer than his normal, jocular tone.

"Yeah, yeah John, 'm sorry, must've zoned out a bit…"

"Boy, did you ever. It's like you were in another universe!" John's voice lightened in relief, approaching its normal tone and levity.

His choice of words caused Gwen's eyes to shoot up to his, pain, fear, and shock playing quickly across her features. John's brow lowered in concern, but before he could say anything Gwen collected herself, remembered where she was and who she was with, and laughed lightly and shook her head.

"Yeah, John, I think I mighta been. What time is it? 'sabout time to head over to the lecture hall?"

"Yup. Twenty 'til ten, gives us just enough time to get there and get organized. You ready?" He was still clearly concerned, but was hesitant to say anything about her uncharacteristic abstraction.

Gwen stood, feeling shaky and disoriented and dreading slogging through this day. She felt cloudy and vaguely unwell, but did her best to push it out of her demeanor.

She smiled and shouldered the bag that in her preoccupation she had never unpacked. Gwen strode purposefully out the door and toward the stairs. Forcing more cheerfulness into her voice she called behind her, "Yup, all set, Mr. Smith. Allons-y!"

John followed without comment, his face still pensive and uneasy.


	4. Chapter 4

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 4

John inched his book higher over his face as he stifled his fourth yawn in half an hour. He'd forgotten than not only was today the due date for the mid-semester paper in the Anthropology 101 classes, it was also a test day. If he'd remembered he'd have brought a book he hadn't read already.

His attention drifted up to the clock and he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes and sighing out loud. It was only 12:04. Still almost an hour until lunch, followed by yet another mind numbing hour and a half of pretending to read a book while staving off death by boredom. He fidgeted quietly on his uncomfortable stool at the front table, stealing a furtive glance at Gwen as he shifted his weight.

John was still disturbed by her uncharacteristic abstraction. She was currently sitting on her own uncomfortable stool at the front table with a chapter of her dissertation open in front of her. Instead of editing, however, she was turned slightly away from the table, staring out the oversized window at the end of the lecture hall with her chin resting in her hand. She hadn't moved a muscle in the…36 minutes that had passed since he had handed test booklets out to the students.

They'd only been working together for eight months or so, but John thought he knew Gwen pretty well—certainly better than anyone else at the UNLV. They shared an office, taught together, and had a ritual of grading papers together, either at his apartment or Gwen's. He considered her his closest friend in this town, and if he had to pick one word to describe her, it would have been focused. In those short months working together he had seen her in various states of 'should have stayed home today,' but she'd always remained her rational, thoughtful, deliberate self.

There was their first week on campus together, before classes had started, when Gwen had a violent allergic reaction to all the desert pollens she'd never been exposed to in London. Even loaded up with antihistamines she'd been a mess of puffy eyes and runny nose, but had insisted on coming to the office and getting ready for classes. There had been a case of walking pneumonia that had knocked her down enough to let John teach all of her classes for two weeks, but she still came to every class and worked on lesson plans with him. There was even that memorable Tuesday when he'd arrived late on campus and found her trying to hide the tears falling onto her desk—it had been the anniversary of the death of a childhood friend of hers (Rose somebody or other), but she had adamantly avoided his sympathy and pulled herself together in time for class.

John had never witnessed this behavior in Gwen, this complete loss of all sense of time and space and reality. Seeing her like this was like watching a beautifully and meticulously reassembled ancient artifact come tumbling down to the ground. It was a little bit frightening.

A cough from somewhere amongst the students brought John back to himself, startling him into dropping his book and almost tipping off of his stool. With an apologetic grin and glowing red cheeks and neck John quickly stooped to grab his book and stuff it back into his bag, trying to ignore the inevitable titter that passed through the room at his clumsiness. In his peripheral vision he noted that Gwen hadn't even blinked.

He cleared his furrowed brow before turning back toward the students and glanced at the clock again. Only 38 minutes now, and then he could get lunch and try to shake his uneasiness at Gwen's odd behavior. 'After all,' he mused as he passed among the students, keeping his eyes peeled for any evidence of cheating, 'everyone is allowed to have a bad day, or an off day. Gwen must just be taking all of them at once. She just needs a distraction from whatever is distracting her.'

Satisfied with this train of thought, he began constructing an argument to convince Gwen to have a night out of some sort and relax a bit. He knew very well that it would be impossible to convince her to head out to a bar or a club with him and let loose a bit. Hell, he didn't like being in bars or clubs when it came right down to it, and a large group of strangers would help neither of them relax. He decided instead to invite her to his apartment to grade papers, something routine and normal that they did every couple of weeks. Only this time, he'd break out the whisky. And maybe a movie or some sci-fi television show or a DVD. Based on her writing she'd probably appreciate the genre and they could have a good, geeky laugh over some campy bit of B-movie tentacled rubber monsters from outerspace.

Glancing up at the clock on his circuit past it, John saw that there were only five minutes left. Making that announcement to the last few stragglers in the room, and seeing that his voice finally brought Gwen out of her trance-like state, he smiled gently at her. He was glad to see it returned, along with an expressive eye-roll at the general slowness of the class period.

He made it down to the front table just as the last student turned in her exam, helping Gwen sort out the test bubble sheets to be dropped off at the university grading center from the papers that they needed to grade themselves. Shoving the pile of papers into his satchel, he handed Gwen the stack of bubble sheets and ostentatiously offered her his arm and waggled his eyebrows, only to knock the carefully stacked pile of bubble sheets she was holding all across the floor.

John let out a loud "ouch!" when he knocked his head on that damn stool as he was kneeling to gather the papers. He emerged from behind the table with a messy pile of dirty and crumpled exams and a look of indignation as he vigorously rubbed his sore forehead with his other hand. When Gwen laughed at his ridiculous appearance, he decided that it was worth all of the indignity to see a genuine smile on his friend's face.

Note: I'm sorry there has been such a long gap in posting. Both my laptop and my dominant arm were broken in a car accident, and I had to get that sorted and then start from scratch and re-write everything. Not to mention heal. I write from back to front, so it's taken a while. Good news- posts will be more regular. Bad news- this chapter is not edited as thoroughly as I would like. I just wanted to get something up here for those of you who have been asking me to post something.

Next chapter there are actual plot developments!


	5. Chapter 5

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 5

Gwen rolled her neck and leaned back over one of John's ladder-back kitchen chairs, her vertebrae popping audibly as she stretched. She returned John's smile as she spoke for the first time since their dinner break an hour ago. "Thanks again, John, for inviting me over. You were right, this is exactly what we needed to do to stay ahead of things, and I'm feeling good about the progress we've made. Look, nearly finished with two classes of term papers, the day they were turned in!"

John's smile quickly spread into a grin, glad to see Gwen back to her normal, focused, cheery self. "Well, me and your spine vote that we take a break and relax for a bit. What d'you say, a bit of a drink and some campy sci-fi nonsense? My parents just sent me a package with some DVDs you might like."

Gwen laughed at the prospect of some 'campy sci-fi nonsense.' "Sounds like a plan to me. Me an' my spine would love a drink and some telly." Her tongue poked out slightly between her teeth as she beamed full-on at John.

John's breath caught slightly at the sight. He really loved that grin, the one that was simple, untainted happiness, and he especially loved when he was responsible for causing it. They both stood of one accord and put the papers away for the evening, moving toward the kitchen cupboards to collect glasses and drinks. As John was fishing out clean glasses (alright, old jelly jars scrubbed of their labels...), Gwen opened the cupboard John had pointed out to get a bottle of whiskey. She was shocked to find six different branded bottles looking at her, and turned to raise a questioning eyebrow at John.

John blushed under her scrutiny and began babbling as he bobbled the two jelly jars he was taking out of his dish strainer. "Well, you know, Gwen, you're from London and your parents send you all that tea, see, but I'm from Tennessee, me, and there's lots of bourbon and whiskey there, actually that's where they phrase 'Tennessee whiskey' comes from, it's branded by NAFTA and everything, not that you're likely to know what NAFTA is, but it's a thing, and so's Tennessee whiskey, and so my parents, they send me whiskey, all the time, see, like your parents and the tea, only it looks a lot worse to have six bottles of whiskey in your cupboard than it does to have six boxes of tea, and I tell them all the time that I'm too busy to party, and that's way too much whiskey, but they mean well, and they keep sending it...oof!" He trailed off abruptly as he turned quickly to catch one of the jelly jars before it smashed on the floor and knocked into Gwen, hard.

Gwen quickly regained her balance and grabbed the jars and set them on the counter. She met John's eye, taking in his red complexion and jaw agape in horror at having nearly knocked her over and suddenly burst into laughter. Real, merry laughter, bent at the waist and holding her sides. Her merriment eased John's nervous shock and he soon joined her. She stood and slowly wiped her eyes, shaking her head. " 'S alright, John. I get it. Just pick your favorite bottle and bring it out to the living room. I've got the cups."

She was settled into his comfy, overstuffed couch, just taking her first sip of whiskey, enjoying the warmth and burn of it as it went down her throat, as John put in the DVD he'd chosen. He explained as the episode began, "This show was always one of my favorites when I was home, and it's even British, so it should feel homey for you. My parents just sent me the first few seasons on DVD as an early birthday present. It's about this time traveler and his adventures, and this is one of my all-time favorite episodes. You don't really need to start at the beginning to understand everything, so I thought we'd start with this one. It's called 'Blink,' and the traveler, he's called the Doctor…"

Gwen lost the sound of his voice in her panic when the screen shifted from a written message from 'The Doctor' to the opening credits and there, in front of her eyes, the TARDIS flew across the screen—exactly as she remembered it. The visual effects were cheesy, and the sound effects were off, but the TARDIS was exactly as it should be, down to the precise color of blue that haunted her morning runs. Before she could recover from that shock, a frozen image of a man who could only be the Doctor came up on the screen. Unlike the TARDIS, however, he didn't look perfectly correct. He looked like a rough sketch of the actual man, come to life in a human form. The unmistakable inconsistencies in his appearance worked to alleviate Gwen's panic, and she was grateful for the darkness as she shut her jaw and felt her body relax minutely.

As the episode continued, Gwen alternated between panic at the similarities between the show and her life with the Doctor, which she hadn't breathed a word of to anyone on this planet, and a strange feeling of wonder and calm at the occasional realization that this entire show was likely born of the chance meeting between a budding writer and her Doctor during his short time in this universe. After all, Martha Jones was clearly not her, not remotely based on her, and their relationship was nothing like her own relationship with the Doctor. She even managed a good laugh at the 'wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey.' She could almost hear those words in her Doctor's voice.

As Sally Sparrow saved the day and the episode drew to a close, Gwen felt grateful tears prick behind her eyes, comforted by the idea that there was even this tiny piece of her Doctor here with her in this universe. It might be fiction, but the fact that it was born of some small grain of truth, in the war that the world now remembers as a terrible natural disaster, soothed some of the rawness that was always inside her, eased a little twinge of that ever-present pain.

Gwen knew there was no way to explain her over-emotional reaction to John, so as he stopped the disk and looked over to gauge her enjoyment, she took a huge gulp of whiskey and induced a vigorous coughing fit.

John smiled to see his friend, always so careful and precise, in one of his normal predicaments. He sat close by Gwen and firmly patted her back, waiting for her to catch her breath and turn her watery eyes toward him before he spoke, "Alright there? I think that's probably enough whiskey for tonight. I'll get you some water. Would you like to watch another episode of this before you leave? It's getting late, and I don't want to keep you up, but I'd like it if you stayed for one more."

Still not able to talk through her heaving breaths, Gwen simply nodded, at both the water and the additional episode of Doctor Who.

John jumped up and moved briskly around his apartment, "Fantastic! I'll get you some water, and then I'll put in my other favorite episode. It's a little sad, but I love the interaction between the actors. It's the second part of a two-part story line, but there's a recap at the beginning to catch you up, and really, the second half is just so good that it's worth skipping the first half if you're in a hurry. You see, the Doctor can regenerate when he dies, you'll see all that at the end, and that's why it's a different actor, we're going sort of backwards…"

Gwen never found out the title of the episode or anything else John was trying to explain as he sat close beside her. Before more than a minute of the recap could flash across the screen, she grabbed for the remote and paused the video, staring mutely, jaw clenched in pain, at the frozen image of her first Doctor, reacting to Rose Tyler being zapped away on Satellite 5.

As the reality of what she was seeing on the TV hit her, Gwen jumped up and gesticulated wildly at the frozen image of the Doctor on the screen, "What is this?! Who is that man?! Where did this come from?!" She choked out in a broken, nearly hysterical voice.

Surprised to see his level-headed friend lose it so suddenly, John panicked and began to babble, "Whoa, what are you talking about? These people are all just actors— that's Christopher Eccleston, the girl's Billie Piper, and the other guy playing the Doctor was David Tennant. They're all actors, and that's all. It's just a TV show, Gwen, it's all just a pretend. What're you—"

Gwen swiveled forcefully on her heels and grabbed John's shirt front, yanking him to his feet in front of her, "This 's not just a show, John. No one should know these things, _no one_. I never told—'s just—not even Mickey..." She gave his shirt an extra hard yank, straining the buttons, and narrowed her eyes. "Who—_what_—are you," she bit out menacingly.

John's Adam's apple bobbed nervously as he saw a golden glow blaze to life in her eyes, a dangerous expression of _knowing_ flash across her features. He gently disentangled her fingers from the front of his shirt, raised his hands wide in a peace-offering gesture, and began to move slowly away from her, speaking soothingly. "It's me, Gwen. We've shared an office and taught classes together for the past year. I'm a student in your program, your TA. I'm just your friend John Smith, nothing more, nothing less. I promise. It's just me. I'm sorry if this show upset you—do… do you want to talk about it?"

He was simply trying to buy time to reach his phone, or his door, or some sort of defensive object to keep between himself and Gwen, who to the best of his knowledge appeared to have had a sudden psychotic break from reality. He was not prepared for her next action.

Gwen's whole body abruptly sagged, wilting in on itself, that dangerous, unnatural golden light leaving her face. She plopped gracelessly down onto the sofa behind her and dropped her head into her hands, speaking softly, haltingly, through fast-falling tears, "'m sorry, John. I know you're you, and I didn't mean to scare you. 's just—the truth is—well, you're not gonna believe me, but you're the only friend I have to trust. That stuff, 's not pretend. The Doctor, the TARDIS, the Daleks, Rose Tyler, they're all real things, real people."

She paused, looking so lost and hopeless and broken and honest that John couldn't help but kneel and pull her into his arms as she continued, her words no longer surprising him.

"John, I used to be Rose Tyler, and that used to be my life."

Note: So, things have been tough and I took a hiatus (obviously), and recently decided that I needed to get back on that horse, and am forcing myself to finish this story to get back into writing. Unfortunately for you, that means that this story is probably going to tilt along in much the manner of this chapter for a little while. It's so forced my hair hurts, and I apologize for that. Hopefully, after very few of this sort of chapter I'll find my groove and get back to some less painful writing. Let me know if you have any constructive ideas to help that along (or to fix this hot mess ).


	6. Chapter 6

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 6

It should have been raining.

As Rose stood by her living room window, watching with damp, red eyes as the sun crested the horizon, her mind clung to that thought. The bright sunshine, the warmth it spread across the dry, desert scenery, all of this was out of place with the turmoil and misery tearing her apart. The dense, soaking rain of a grey dawn would have been more appropriate.

Her laptop screen was frozen on an image of her second Doctor, moments before her hand had slipped and landed her in this universe. She couldn't bring herself to watch the final few scenes of this episode—everything up until this point had been frighteningly accurate, and this was a moment in her life she absolutely did not want to relive. Instead, she flopped down onto a plush chair on the other side of the room.

That was still the part of her entire story she had the most difficult time understanding. Rose had always assumed that it would be death that ultimately separated her from the Doctor. She pledged to stay with him forever, and she meant it. Eventually, her 'forever' would run out, she knew, and death would claim her. But she had been ferociously determined that nothing less should separate them; she would never have to prepare for life without the Doctor, because all that ever could stand between them was the spectre of death itself.

And so she always thought, until that day. Until the day she lost everything that had come to matter in her life to a sweaty palm. After fighting so fiercely to stay at the Doctor's side, she lost everything to such a simple, quintessentially human foible. Some days it felt too much to bear, and she had to fight a mad urge to cut off her own hand.

She was grateful to Pete and his Torchwood team for saving her from whatever awaited her in the void. Truly, their timing was beyond serendipitous. Still, she couldn't help but resent it a bit when she was in her most black and foul moods. With the void would have at least come the relief of death, or of nothingness. Without Pete's interference, she wouldn't be sitting in a room in the Nevada desert, looking pointedly away from a screen where actors were playing out the most painful moments of her life.

She could not figure out how any of this had somehow made its way to television. When John had first showed it to her, she was willing to think that perhaps the Doctor had made an impression on a young writer in his brief time in this universe. But it had quickly become clear that it was something more sinister than this. Other than herself, only her mother and Mickey were aware of any of the details of her life with the Doctor. She didn't like to believe that either of them would share intimate details of her life with anyone without her permission, and it had later become clear that they had not, in fact, been guilty of that crime.

That small measure of relief was quickly buried under the cascade of emotions that came as she watched herself become the Bad Wolf, as she watched herself perform miracles she only vaguely remembered in dreams, and as she watched her first Doctor die and transform. These were things she never shared with another living soul, and she had no idea how it had found its way onto a television screen.

She and John had finished watching that episode together, at her insistence, to make sure that the details were as painfully accurate as she had feared based on the flashback montage at the beginning of the episode.

John had been uncannily sympathetic after the initial scene she made, listening as she broke down in his arms, holding her while she sobbed out the rest of her bizarre history, and not uttering a single word of disbelief or skepticism. When she had suddenly pulled out of his arms to insist on watching the remainder of that episode his face showed trust and sincerity, and he started the disc without question. And when the events of that episode sent her back into a borderline-hysterical crying fit, his only reaction had been to wrap her up in his arms again and let her storm and rage at his side.

A glance toward the window brought the computer screen back into Rose's view. She closed her eyes, shutting out the image of her Doctor's face in the moments before she slipped forever from his grasp, and let her mind drift to the previous night's conversation with John after "The Parting of Ways" had ended…

Once her atypical fit of emotional weeping had finally left her quiet and exhausted, John wordlessly left her, returning with a book full of his own astonishing revelations. He sat next to Rose and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his body and letting her sag wearily against his chest and shoulder. He placed a journal on his knees and studied the bit of her face he could see, gathering his thoughts. Rose turned her head against his shoulder and met his somber gaze. He cleared his throat, but waited to speak until he could see that her attention was fully focused.

"Gwen…or would you rather Rose? Yes, I can see you'd rather Rose… that's going to take some getting used to, by the way. Anyway, Rose, you must be wondering how it is that I do absolutely believe your story, and don't think you've lost your marbles. Well, it's because I have this journal. This is my Journal of Impossible Things, and it is full of stories and sketches of the Doctor."

At this announcement Rose sat up straight, slightly reenergized, and gestured toward the journal, silently asking John to open the pages. He complied and continued, "Here, this should look familiar, Gwe— er, Rose. " He turned to several pages of the journal that showed details from "Blink."

Rose looked between the journal and John, puzzled. "So you've been writing down everything that you see on television? Why does that make you believe me? Are you sure you've not gone mad?" She flipped pages idly as she spoke, going backward several pages until she froze on a full-page sketch, breath catching in fear.

"Did you draw this?" she asked, voice low and strained.

"Yeah, I did. And it's not nearly as horrifying as what I dreamed about it."

"How do you know what Daleks looks like? They were similar on the telly, but this…" She shivered.

"This is what I'm trying to say, Rose. The things in this journal, they're not just things from TV. I dream about these things, and then I when I wake up I feel compelled to write and sketch the dreams. The things you saw on TV, I dreamed them up months and months before they were ever seen by another human being on television. I don't know why the dreams started, I don't know how they started, and I don't know where they come from, but this journal is where they end up. This is the story of the Doctor, Gwe…Rose. This is why I believe you so readily, because I already dreamed your story."

Rose was still staring at the menacing image of the Dalek. John gently turned the pages away from the terrifying image, letting Rose look at each page for a few seconds as they went backwards in time through the journal. Eventually she stilled his hand and closed the journal, turning to face him fully. He could read the question in her serious gaze as she scanned his face and body, looking for clues. John took her hands in his.

"No, Rose, I'm not the Doctor."

Her shoulders sagged slightly, "Are you sure? There was the story in here about the Doctor being human temporarily and not knowing. This whole journal, it could be autobiographical. Maybe that's why you remember these dreams so well, maybe they're really suppressed memories!"

John squeezed her hands lightly, answering, "No, Rose, I'm just a human. I don't look or act or sound anything like the Doctor, and I have a rich, full life of real memories. I have parents who I visit on breaks and who send me care packages and whiskey. I have siblings and cousins and friends who all remember my childhood. I am just John Smith, a man who has inexplicable dreams about the Doctor. Heck, I titled this journal after the story you were talking about. Trust me, I've thought about it, but I'm just not him, Rose. He's…" John stopped, not wanting to complete the thought.

Rose completed it for him, "He's not here. I know, John. I feel it every day… I just got carried away by hope, I guess." She gave him a tight smile, which he returned, looking fatigued.

Recognizing his weariness, Rose stood and took a few steps back from John.

"Thank you for sharing this, John, and for…well, everything else. You need to sleep. And I need to think. There are so many things… I have so many… I just, I really need to think. I need some space. I'm going to walk home."

John tried to stop her, to offer her his couch, or his bed if she'd rather he sleep on the couch, but to no avail. Finally, seeing that she was going to have her way, regardless of his objections, he put his journal into her hands, hugged her, and asked that she finish reading it and talk to him the next day.

As she was leaving, she slipped John's box set of season 3 into her bag, determined to witness more of her story— which details were included, which were left out, and which were possibly just unknown to the creator of the show. She wanted to compare it to his Journal of Impossible Things.

And so Rose had spent a sleepless night, finding she had many, many questions, a lot of painful memories, and no answers. She again turned toward the screen of her laptop, still frozen on the Doctor's face, and still she found herself unable to push play and watch those last, painful scenes.

Instead Rose stood, walked over to the laptop and slammed down the lid. She much more gently closed John's journal, lying next to the computer, and moved to stand in the sunny window again. The sun was fully risen and the cheerful morning sunlight shimmered in the sandy scrub land beyond the edge of town.

It should be raining, she thought as she looked out and sighed.

Note: Thank you so much for all the encouragement and suggestions! It really means a lot to me to open my mailbox and find it full of kindness. Thank you all!

Many of you are asking 'where is the Doctor!' He'll turn up soon, I promise!


	7. Chapter 7

Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 7

John heaved a sigh into his empty office. Since he sat at his desk he had time to consume two cups of instant coffee, and remake Gwen's cup of tea three times.

Even though it's Saturday, even though both he and Gwen were up stupidly late talking, he knows she'll be in this morning. He knows it the way that he knows kindness from hostility in a foreign tongue, the way that he knows which tool he'll need to work an artifact free of soil; he knows it instinctively. He knows that Gwen will come because Gwen is _Rose Tyler_ and she must feel the same impatience he feels.

John is normally a very patient man. He is, after all, an archeologist. He can sit for hours at the same tedious and minute task. Whether it is heavy research into a specific culture, or working on a difficult translation, or painstakingly reassembling shattered pottery, he is able to sit at that job with a steady hand and cool brow. But this, this smelled of adventure, and John has never felt more impatient.

Determined to not miss Rose when she inevitably came to her office, John woke at 5, after a scant two hours of sleep, and biked to their office before 6. He was in such an excited hurry to get to the office that he nearly ran over the homeless woman who always preached the Gospel of Saint Rigatoni a block from his apartment, and nearly collided with a random pedestrian in a dark coat as he emerged from an unlit alley a few blocks from campus. Now, after rushing in only to wait two and a half hours, John was ready to jump out of his skin.

Rose opened the door to the office just as John, practically vibrating out of his skin with anticipation and excitement, declared to himself for the fifth time that five more minutes of waiting would simply kill him. Fully expecting to be alone, Rose froze in the doorway.

"John? It's Saturday, and you were up late. What are you doing here? I'm not up for talking just yet, if that's what you're hoping for."

"No, no, Gwen… Rose… sorry… we can do that another time. You'll catch me up eventually. I'm here because you seemed to think that something was really wrong last night… maybe even dangerous?"

"Yeah, maybe. I dunno, John. Something is certainly very weird in all this. You dreamed the Doctor's life in another dimension, and so did at least one other person in this dimension. It might be a coincidence. It might mean nothing. But…"

"But it might mean there's a problem with the rift between the two dimensions?"

Rose looked at him, nonplussed, before remembering he had learned all that sort of knowledge from watching the Doctor on television. The tension in her face eased a little. "Yeah, might mean that."

John scratched his nose, trying to remember what specific things Doctor Who had said about the rifts between dimensions. "Would that be bad? Like, end of the world bad?"

"The Doctor thought it would be bad." She closed her eyes. "Bad enough that he left me here, even though…"

John interrupted, knowing she would never complete that thought out loud, "Well, if the woman who has actually saved the world before thinks it might need saving again, I'm in."

Walking around her desk, Rose considered John's earnest words. She sat and looked into the courtyard outside their only window. "John, thing is, I don't even know where to being. Haven't a bloody clue. This could be an alien, or it could be a monster, or it could be an object, or it could be absolutely nothing. Hell, I could be a conduit, somehow projecting all my hopes onto a couple poor sods. I don't know where to start, or where I'll end up, and it might be nothing, but it might be really dangerous. Really dangerous. I can't drag you into something like this blind, John."

"Well, Rose Tyler, I'm going to follow whether you like it or not. I'll do whatever you ask me to do, and I'll go into all of this with my eyes wide open. We're neither of us Time Lords, but if something is perilously wrong, we'll figure something out. I have faith in that—I have faith in you." He shrugged, "I learned that from your Doctor. I also learned that if someone is trying to save the world, they deserve to have a companion while they're about it."

Rose's face softened into a genuine smile, and she really looked at John for the first time this morning, taking in his unshaved jaw, red-rimmed eyes, and absolute confidence in her. After a moment he widened his eyes and jutted out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. How could Rose turn that away? It would be like kicking a puppy.

Shaking her head and chuckling, she decided that if they were going to start this, whatever it was, together, they may as well start it properly. "Well, since we're off on a busy day, any chance of some tea, then?"

John laughed then rubbed the back of his neck, abashed. "I already made you three cups of tea this morning, and drank two cups of coffee myself, I was so excited for you to come in and for us to get started on whatever you thought needed to be done. So now the kettle's dry." He shot up, catching up the kettle and starting toward their office door. "Tell you what, I'll nip down to dining hall to fill it with decent water, and you start a list of what we need to do. Be back in a jiffy!"

He was gone so quickly that he didn't even hear Rose's giggle at his antics. She pulled out a piece of paper and was staring at the blank sheet, thinking and tapping her pencil, when the door opened and John abruptly re-entered the room. She accosted him without looking up.

"That was fast, do you need something?"

"Yeah, might do. I'm lookin' for Rose Tyler, you know'er?"

Rose's eyes shot up at the sound of that painfully familiar voice. She jumped out of her chair so quickly it fell back against the wall with a loud thunk. She gasped as she took in the well-known black boots, jeans, black leather jacket, blue jumper. Her heart was throbbing so hard it made her vision pulse, but she was still able to distinguish the short cropped hair, clear blue eyes, and daft ears of the face she'd missed so much and for so long it physically hurt.

As she stared she wasn't entirely sure she was awake. It had been a strange night, and for all she knew she'd gone stark raving mad. It took her two swallows before she could get out any words, her voice quick and strained, "What'd you say?"

"Rose Tyler. I'm lookin' for Rose Tyler."

Rose closed her eyes and drew in a deep, slow breath. Whatever greeted her when she opened her eyes, no matter the proof that she'd gone round the bend and this had all been a figment of her imagination, she had still heard it once. She heard the sound of her Doctor saying her name again, with his own ubiquitous 'Northern' accent, and for this one moment, it was wonderful.

An hysterical laugh bubbled in the back of her throat when she finally opened her eyes and saw him still standing there, wearing a bemused expression. His familiar air of patient tolerance gave her courage.

With several painful and wonderful emotions coursing through her entire body, Rose drew cautiously closer to this man, her Doctor, and studied his face. To the casual observer he appeared calm and indifferent to Rose's strange behavior, but her eyes, accustomed to the Doctor's mask of indifference, caught the subtle evidence of curiosity and wonder playing through his features. Once she was close enough Rose put her hands on the lapels of his jacket, pushing them out of the way and laying her palms against his chest, over the spaces where a Time Lord's two hearts would be located. As she felt the familiar, syncopated double beat of his binary vascular system, Rose saw fear and doubt join the changing expressions on his face.

Rose finally looked full into his eyes, palms still on his chest, and spoke in a small voice, "It's me Doctor, I'm Rose Tyler." She cocked her head when he remained passive, his expression neutral. "You don't know me, do you."

It was a statement, not a question, but the Doctor still gave his head a miniscule shake and asked in an equally soft tone, "Should I?" He was completely unprepared for what happened next.

*SLAP*

"Oi!" The Doctor jumped back from Rose, knocking into John as he returned with the full kettle. "Whatcha wanna do that for?!"

Rose's face transformed from tender to furious in a moment, her hand stinging from where it had met the Doctor's face. She glared hard at the Time Lord as he rubbed his cheek and gave her an injured look, her voice rising throughout the passionate tirade that followed.

"You knew! I can't believe you knew! How could you travel with me for so long, for all those years, and KNOW that you would come through that rift and meet me, and not be here? How could you know the rift would be open and not make an effort to come bring me back to you? Oh, I hope you remember this! I hope you carry this memory with you for the rest of however many lives you have! I really hope that hurt! It can't possible hurt as much as this does! I thought that day on the beach was the worst day of my life, but I was wrong…THIS is the worst day of my life. How could you, Doctor? How could you do this? How could you not be here to save me from this?"

She was dissolving into tears, hating herself for showing that weakness for the umpteenth time in two days, too over tired and high strung to stop herself. Here was the Doctor, the savior of worlds, the last of the Time Lords, _her_ Doctor, and he didn't know her.

John, meanwhile, stood with his back to the closed door, staring at the scene in front of him. There was Rose Tyler. And there was the real and actual Doctor, the one he'd dreamed about. He found himself equal parts gob-smacked, angry, amazed, and indignant at the water that soaked him from chest to sneakers, the water from the kettle that the Doctor had spilled when he jumped back into John.

Given the current situation, John did the only thing that seemed right. He went to Rose and gathered her into his sopping arms, letting her sag against him as her sobbing tapered off into bone-weary exhaustion. He gently turned her away from the Doctor and glared over her head at the Time Lord who had caused her such distress.

The Doctor, flummoxed as to Rose's reaction to him, his bizarre desire to comfort her himself, and John's icy glare, huffed out a breath and rifled through his pockets. "Aha!" He came out with the bit psychic paper that had caused all this trouble.

That earned him an extra hard glare from John as he soothed Rose.

He checked the words on the paper, just to make sure. "Find Rose Tyler." The paper was crumpled and shoved back into his pocket. He touched his sore cheek and chanced another glance at John, who was still glaring at him.

He huffed again. Rose Tyler, indeed.


End file.
